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Rotary tools in support of electronics, Dremel and more ..

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nukie:
Proxxon, I have a few models they have bearings made in heaven. Drills 0.25 mm holes without breaking carbide drills, the drill stand is available from amazon cheap and very useful and very rigid compared to Dremel toys. Once you tried a Proxxon, you will never look back, Dremel is immediately at the bottom of list, it has shitty bearings. Foredom is too expensive.

Many has converted Proxxon tools into cnc.

Flex shaft is not the answer to precision stuff, and it requires regular maintenance.  It is not as flexible as holding the Proxxon Micromot. It is a low voltage and lightweight tool it provide full freedom.  I feel that flex shaft is always fighting me whenever I want to change angle. It is especially useful for micro engraving PCB, it works really well. Despite being an AC motor, you can power it from your DC power supply albeit with less torque(unless you build a PWM). It starts with a gentle hum from 6V you can use it in the silent of the night but don't let this little gem fool you it's bloody monster when it's at 15V. I fit a 2mm endmill to mill aluminium block quite slowly.

The advantage of bigger brother mains powered Proxxons over Dremels are their precision bearings and balanced motors. Other than that, I don't see much different. Proxxon has very little vibration which makes them a fine tool. Just think about it the next time you use your Dremel. The Dremel is like a tool trying escape from your hands when it's on. My biggest regret is buying a second Dremel. Get a Proxxon you won't be disapointed.

Finally not everything is good with Proxxon, I find some of their engraving bits quite 'unfinished'. Dremel makes very fine bits.
On the right is a factory Proxxon bit that I fixed manually.

Fallingwater:
My "good" rotary is a mains-powered Black&Decker RT650. Back when I bought it a Dremel would have cost me neatly twice as much (they have come down in price since). I often read bad opinions about B&D, but I've gotta say the RT650 is a good tool. It has torque to spare and I've had no trouble with the bearings. I put a drill-style chuck on it because I was tired of losing the little triwing collets every time I had to change bit size and it's been my main rotary tool for the last decade.

I also have a nail-art rotary I got from a friend after she gave up on the activity and sold her gear. It looks a lot like this, except for the color. The motor is much smaller than an ordinary Dremel; it's about the size of one of those pistol-grip cordless Dremels, but without the grip part. It has impressive torque for something that small and that, uh, pink.
The collet has a twist-grip arrangement that works really well at releasing bits, and the base has a variable speed setting and lets you change direction, though there's little point in running it reversed. It's also surprisingly quiet considering its power. Torque-wise it obviously can't match the mains-powered RT650, but for precision jobs it blows it into the weeds - bits meant for grinding stone-hard nail-art gel and acrylic have little trouble eating through relatively soft materials like plastic, and can go through harder stuff given enough effort.

I also have a couple of cordless cheapies with nothing interesting to remark on. I use them for low-power jobs around the house.

saturation:
Thanks everyone for their insight into so many rotary tools of use in electronics.  Please keep them coming, I think this thread is one of the better ones on the net, as it covers so many types of tools in one spot, very well described and detailed.

Eyeballing Proxxon reviews on Amazon.com, for 115/E and IB/E units, ~ 25% complain [ 3 star or less reviews] of early failures with motors smoking as a fairly common symptom.  Anyone experience this?

T4P:
I only know dremels suffer from premature brush failure, fake or not.

robrenz:

--- Quote from: saturation on July 12, 2012, 11:10:46 pm ---Eyeballing Proxxon reviews on Amazon.com, for 115/E and IB/E units, ~ 25% complain [ 3 star or less reviews] of early failures with motors smoking as a fairly common symptom.  Anyone experience this?

--- End quote ---

The parts listing on thier website shows a geared drive.  That is why the spindle is offset from the body.  It does not look like it would be very robust.

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